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The best gear for your living room home theater
By Grant Clauser This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer's guide to the best technology. Read the full article here. Everyone loves watching a great movie on a big screen with a kickass speaker system, but few would complain about losing the sticky floors, uncomfortable seats, and kids with smartphones (unless they're your own kids). We spent thousands of hours on research and testing to find the best-looking and -sounding home theater equipment to upgrade your living-room movie-watching experience from simply functional to highly enjoyable. (We have recommendations for a dedicated theater space as well in our full review).
Now hear this -- NHT is back
It's no secret we were holding out hope for speaker and electronics manufacturer NHT to make a comeback, but we didn't expect it's happen this soon. The iconic audio company powered things down at the end of March, and now co-founder Chris Byrne bringing the company back with a new factory-direct web-centric business model that will skip right over the middleman to the tune of as much as 30-percent savings. There's no substitute for a live demo, especially for audio, so authorized dealers will still have showrooms; but orders will still come factory-direct to consumers. Sounds reasonable, but we're curious about how much of a slice dealers take, and how they get credit for sales they generate in exchange for not having to carry any stock. Still, we've got to give credit to NHT for trying to get the crusty audio market moving in a new direction and hope this thing catches on so we can see some of the eight new product concepts currently in the works at NHT.
NHT Audio sings its swan song... for now
It's a sad day for fans of Now Hear This (NHT) Audio, best known for its speaker offerings -- the company is "going quiet." A letter from company co-founder Chris Byrne makes it clear that while the NHT didn't go bankrupt, there's been a sea-change in the audio market that needs a different approach. Them's strong words from a company that has a pretty solid reputation for doing things a bit differently. We remember, for example, when the NHT 3.3s came out -- that gangly narrow cabinet afforded good imaging from the front-firing drivers and the radical (at the time) woofer location on the side wall enhanced the bass response -- NHT definitely was quirky in a good way. March 31st will mark the end of NHT as we know it; here's to hoping we see it rise again in a new form with creative ideas to throw into audiodom. Not that we're counting on it, but it might just happen.
